Winner of GE Edison Award for Residential Lighting decorates 85-year-old barn with light.

CLEVELAND--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 2006--Last night, GE Consumer & Industrial presented Michael F. Rohde of L-Plan Lighting Design with the first-ever GE Edison Award for Residential Lighting in recognition of his work transforming an 85-year old cow barn into affluent living quarters. The 23rd Annual GE Edison Awards Ceremony held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas also recognized the work of 10 other lighting designers/firms.

"Lighting design has such a huge impact on the character of a living space and the moods of those who live in it," said Mary Beth Gotti, Manager of the GE Lighting & Electrical Institute in Cleveland, Ohio. "We added the Residential Award to underscore the importance of lighting design in the home and to encourage residential designers to showcase their best work. Although residential projects have always been welcomed to the GE Edison Awards, many designers felt that these projects were not of sufficient scale to favorably compete with much larger projects."

Rohde's residential lighting project helped make livable space out of the old cow barn on Seven Oaks Farm in St. Charles, Ill. Citing inspiration for the project, Rohde quoted William Wordsworth: "Come forth into the light of things ... let nature be your teacher."

Let nature be your teacher

In his work transforming the old barn, Rohde and architect Helmut Jahn permeated the once pitch-black interior with daylight through side windows and linear skylights on the roof. The result - beautiful and natural shadows throughout the building.

During the evening hours, diffuse and direct light creates varying intensities of brightness throughout the barn that mimic nature-like patterns of light and shadow.

"Often when people approach lighting, their inclination is to flood space with light," said Gotti. "But what really make designs dramatic and visually more appealing is non-uniform lighting techniques, which reveal the architectural features of a given space."

Achieving the effect

Rhodes illuminated the "barn-turned-home" with a variety of GE lamps, including high-efficiency fluorescents(1) and halogen lamps(2). While most of the lighting systems in his design remain integrated, or hidden, within the architecture, there is one exception - Rhode's use of pendants, which hang from the ceiling, refracting halogen light for visual interest.

"One of the things the judges looked for when evaluating Rhode's design was how he integrated lamps and light fixtures into the architecture," Gotti said. "Concealing lighting systems - or, leaving people to wonder 'where did that light come from?' - is the hallmark of an exceptional design. "

Lighting in the pool area creates a glowing ceiling, and asymmetric reflectors directly light the pool without creating glare.

"This lighting design truly exemplifies simplicity," said Gotti. "The number of luminaries is reduced to a bare minimum, but the effect is stunning."

Tips for incorporating winning techniques in your home

While a project of this scope would likely require the work of a professional, there are some lessons to be learned from this design and tips for applying them in the home:

-- Creating subtle ambient light: Rhodes incorporates much of his lighting into the architecture. At home, you might try installing recessed fixtures in your ceiling with reflectors or special trims. Low profile fluorescent T5 fixtures can provide soft, diffuse light in kitchens, coves and other applications.

-- Making a statement: Rhode used pendant lamps to not only create ambient light, but also to create some visual interest. Certainly, you don't want all your general light sources to be hidden. Try globe pendants, lantern pendants, and chandeliers to create interest.

-- Creating natural-looking shadow: The greatest visual interest occurs when light grazes surfaces to bring out features of spaces or objects, so the real key is not to over-light a surface. Varying intensities of direct and diffuse light help reveal surfaces and create patterns of light and shadow. Wall sconces, torchieres and uplights in the corners of a room can also help create interesting shadow. Even placing light behind or underneath a plant can create some nice, intricate effects.

-- Incorporating daylight: When building or renovating, maximize the effect of natural light by incorporating windows and skylights into the architecture. Special materials and shades can provide pleasant daylighting qualities, while controlling heating and fading effects.

-- Minimizing glare: Unpleasant brightness in the field of view is called direct glare. Filters on the glass and shades can control the light from windows. Decorative fixtures like chandeliers may need to be dimmed to reduce glare while maintaining the sparkle quality. Using fixtures with appropriate reflectors and trims and properly positioning them in a room are essential to controlling glare.

-- Let simplicity guide you: Limit the number of lights to what's necessary for creating the desired effect. If there's a particular area - like a work area - that needs additional or brighter light, try concentrating light in those spots. This is called task lighting.

The GE Edison Award competition is open to those lighting professionals who creatively employ significant use of GE lamps in a lighting design project completed during the previous calendar year. Visit www.GEEdisonAward.com to view all the award winners of the 2005 GE Edison Awards in more detail and to find information related to the 2006 GE Edison Award Call for Entries.

GE Consumer & Industrial spans the globe as an industry leader in major appliance, lighting and integrated industrial equipment, systems and services. Providing solutions for commercial, industrial and residential use in more than 100 countries, GE Consumer & Industrial uses innovative technologies and "ecomagination," a GE initiative to aggressively bring to market new technologies that help customers and consumers meet pressing environmental challenges, to deliver comfort, convenience and electrical protection and control. General Electric (NYSE: GE) brings imagination to work, selling products under the Monogram(R), Profile(TM) GE(R), Hotpoint(R), SmartWater(TM) Reveal(R) and GE Edison(TM) consumer brands, and Entellisys(TM) industrial brand. For more information, consumers may visit www.ge.com.

Source: BusinessWire

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(1) GE 54-watt T5 Starcout(R) 3500K fluorescent lamps

(2) GE halogen 75-watt PAR30 flood lamps and Quartzline(R) 150-watt and 250-watt single-ended lamps

Website: www.ge.com www.gecipressroom.com